New sushi restaurant opens in Johnson County, serving trendy favorites
Half of Daniel Hnin’s new restaurant is an on-the-go boba bar, serving trendy favorites like taro and tiger milk teas.
The other half is filled with tables, where customers sit and enjoy a variety of sushi rolls or take them home.
The new spot, DeiRel Sushi & Boba, opened Tuesday at 6485 Quivira Road in Shawnee. It’s a few doors down from Bates City BBQ.
DeiRel is a family business. Hnin’s uncle, Mang Al, is the sushi chef. His cousins and other relatives also help — slicing raw fish and pouring tea with tapioca pearls.
The crew also owns Asian fusion restaurant Chin Paradise up in St. Joseph, which has served a faithful following for the past two years.
“The St. Joseph restaurant, we have a lot of customers,” Hnin said. “The locals love Asian food.”
Hnin and his family hail from the Chin State in western Myanmar.
His Kansas City area restaurant is named after one of (if not the first) Bible printing presses in the Chin State.
It was started by missionaries Arthur and Laura Carson, who came over in the late 1800s. Hnin’s father, Peng Uk, worked at the printing press. “DeiRel” is a Chin word that translates to “morning star.”
“We’re really hoping that DeiRel will be our morning star,” Hnin said of the restaurant.
The sushi menu includes the Chef Special (rice, soy sheets, avocado, sesame seeds, tuna, salmon and cucumber), Spicy Shrimp Roll (rice, seaweed, cucumbers, sesame seeds, spicy mayonnaise, shrimp, sriracha, jalapeno) and Mimi Roll (rice, sesame seeds, cream cheese, avocado, salmon and tuna).
Other tea drinks include watermelon green tea, passion fruit tea and honey dew tea. Hnin noted that he wanted to include boba options at the business because he knows it’s popular with the under-30 crowd.
Hnin said he’s “very excited” to have the restaurant open in Kansas City. He’s been in the business since high school and has worked his way up from washing dishes to owning a place of his own.
DeiRel is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. It’s closed on Sundays.
Meanwhile, more sushi places are popping up around the metro.
Sannin, 2820 W. 47th Ave. in Kansas City, Kansas, opened in the Northwood shopping earlier this month, serving sushi, poke and ramen.
This summer, the owners of now-closed Sakura Japanese Sushi Train in Olathe are opening a revolving sushi bar called Umami. It’ll open in the former First Watch space at 8180 W. 135th St. in Overland Park.